The Republican | Diane LedermanThis is one of the houses Deerfield Academy student Peter Krasznekewicz created as part of his environmental installation celebrating the poetry of Emily Dickinson. The houses are now for sale to benefit Pioneer Valley Habitat for Humanity.

Now the art project inspired by Christo, the environmental installation artist who created The Gates in New York City is being sold to raise thousands for the Pioneer Valley Habitat for Humanity.

Initially, recent Deerfield Academy graduate Peter Krasznekewicz who created the work for a school project, planned to donate the materials to the Pioneer Valley Habitat for Humanity chapter to use for building.

The houses are seven feet long, four feet wide, and eight feet tall, and made from Forest Stewardship Council certified and formaldehyde-free plywood panels.
But “the dimensions of the wood make it difficult, rather frustrating for our builders,” said Keegan Pyle, development director for Habitat.

Amherst resident Peter Jessup, the president of the Habitat board, suggested they be sold as houses and to raise money that way. Krasznekewicz agreed.
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The houses are selling for $250, with $50 more if people want them delivered.

They are dissembled now and shrink-wrapped and being stored on Cowl’s Building Supply site in Amherst, she said. Assembly would cost an additional $200, she said. All the money will benefit Habitat, she said. That means the sale of homes would generate at least $6,250.
The houses can be used as works of art, or as playhouses or doghouses. “You can do anything you want with them,” Pyle said.

Jessup said the idea with selling them instead of using them as building materials means “people might be able to appreciate the art for a longer period.” That would “translate them into the same value to Habitat…(the houses) would continue to get recycled into the community.”

“It’s not the typical fund-raiser,” Pyle said. “It’s not one that we would have come up with by ourselves. The idea is really creative.”

Once someone buys one of the houses on the Habitat Web site, they can chose which Dickinson quote they want.

Just a week after the house sale was launched, they sold two, Pyle said. There were 25 available for sale.